MARDAN: Unidentified gunmen opened fire on a polio vaccination team in Ghalla Dera area of Mardan on Tuesday, killing a police constable who was providing security to the team., Dispatch News Desk (DND) reported.
Police have been accompanying polio teams in the country, which falls under three countries where the crippling disease is endemic, after the targeted killings of polio workers began in Karachi and Peshawar.
Suspicion for the attacks falls on militants, who oppose the vaccination campaign, accuse health workers of acting as spies for the US and claim the polio vaccine is intended to make Muslim children sterile.
Taliban commander in North Waziristan, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, had banned anti-polio drives in the agency “unless drone strikes ended.”
Anyone who disobeyed these orders would be “held responsible for their actions,” said Bahadur.
Last year, a total of 58 cases reported across Pakistan with 27 in KPK, 20 in FATA, four in Balochistan, two in Punjab, four in Sindh and one in Gilgit-Baltistan.
DND
